Anatomy of an Image

Everyone has a camera. Everyone thinks they can take a picture. It's not easy, folks. The more I try, the harder it gets. This is what it took for this one.

Point Betsie Lighthouse



1. Run home from work, load the camera that cost half of what I paid for my first house, a change of clothes, and a tent into the truck. 
2. Drive three and a half hours only to watch the sun set off to your left when you're still 30 minutes away.
3. Hurry down to the beach and see there's not much time left to shoot before all of the light goes away, only to have someone with a camera they just bought come up to you for help and stop you from getting that last little glimmer of light and hope for the night.
4. Go off into the dark trying to find a place to set up your tent only to get lost and settle for a county park to stay in and the front seat of your truck as your bed for the night.
5. Wake up to the county Sheriff telling you that you have to leave and the nearest tent campground is about 30 minutes away.
6. Get to that campground finally about midnight, set up the tent, and then grab everything again at six in the morning so you can make it back by sunrise.
7. Pray there's a little color and a few clouds in the morning sky so it doesn't look like a big grey nondescript blob of nothing.
8. Press the shutter and hold your breath for the fraction of a second this all leads up to.

That's what it took and this doesn't even count the things I left at home, the yard work left undone, the time not spent with Denise, the nap I missed. So the next time you think it's easy to take a picture, remember this...

I don't take pictures. I make images.


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